Despite tea party grumbling, John Cornyn in good shape in GOP primary

WICHITA FALLS — With five weeks to go before the primary, tea partiers are still grumbling about Sen. John Cornyn. But grumbling isn’t the same as spitting mad.

After a dozen years in the Senate and his climb to become the party’s deputy leader, he’s the definition of the “establishment” many of them despise. He’s not aggressive enough, they say. He abandoned Sen. Ted Cruz in the fight to defund Obamacare, they say.

“Yeah, I hold it against him. Doesn’t mean I won’t vote for him, but I hold it against him,” said Wayne Pharries, 48, a commercial banker who came to hear Cornyn address the chamber of commerce over lunch Wednesday at Wichita Falls Country Club.